Archive for real world

About a week after my horrific encounter with a Lucasfilm employee (read part 1 here), a member of the Alliance to Preserve the Expanded Universe approached me on Facebook messenger, reporting that Ms. Gutierrez had taken to Reddit telling people to calm down and stop bothering me (as a non-Redditor, I know nothing further about it than that). This group member suggested that I use the situation as an opportunity to open a line of communication with Lucasfilm. Although I did not have very high hopes in any such maneuver being successful, I felt that I at least had the responsibility to offer the olive branch. (Or glowing orb of peace.) I determined to write a physical letter, use up two of my remaining Star Wars US postage stamps, and make the friendliest possible overture of contact. The Alliance member who approached me not only agreed to proofread my letter, but also offered an original piece of artwork to send with the letter: a gift and symbol of the unity of fandom. This custom art depicted Qui-Gon Jinn and Artoo (the favorite characters of myself and Ms. Gutierrez, respectively) “waiting for more stories” outside Yoda’s hut on a rainy Dagobah.

Five other administrators of the Alliance Facebook group also reviewed my letter before I printed and mailed it, to be absolutely certain its tone was respectful, appropriate, and that all issues had been addressed. In this letter, I stated that I would visit this entire situation in full on my blog if she did not object. In eight months, I have not received any message whatsoever. Here’s the letter:

Dear Andi Gutierrez:

I’m reaching out to you regarding the unfortunate occurrence on Twitter last week.

Allow me to say first that you have my profound sympathy over any medical stress you may be under. It was never my intention to disrupt you, least of all when you had more important things to be focused on. I regret that this occurred, as my purpose was not to “target” you and I identified you only because the journalism standard I learned is to name anyone in an image; had there been a version of the image without you in it, I would have used that. I believe I also would have worded things differently had I noticed who I was speaking to in my first tweet replying directly to you.

Our presuppositions seem to have made us speak right past each other. Twitter, even with 280 characters, still isn’t the best place for clarity. I saw Luke Skywalker’s face crossed out and recalled the crushing misery on Mark Hamill’s face in an interview when Rian Johnson condescendingly patted him on the shoulder to silence him. Of course, you merely saw the good-natured hijinks of coworkers and friends. Ours is just one example of the growing divide between many fans and the company we wish to think the best of. I hope this letter will encourage dialogue between Lucasfilm and fans unintentionally alienated; I mean to publish it on my blog unless you object.

I also regret if you experienced any harassment; I am emphatically not associated with anyone who came after you. The complaints I saw people making were not the same as the message I meant to convey. Simply this: many fans felt a death mark on Luke’s face is a tone-deaf joke at a time when so many people are still reeling from creative decisions in the most recent film. We are tremendously discouraged when Lucasfilm employees respond to such concerns with dismissal. We’re frustrated, but “trolling” is the farthest thing from what we want. We want to communicate.

I appreciated your efforts on Reddit begging fans to get along with one another. I hope to work with you in that regard. Please feel free to reply to me at my personal email, [redacted]. Enclosed, please find a gift, a piece of original artwork made by a fellow member of the Give Us Legends movement, in hopes that it will encourage friendly relations between fans and creators once more.

Sincerely,

[Redacted]
The “RebeLibrarian”

Enclosure

More than anything, I wanted to forget all about this. I almost didn’t send the letter several times. I ignored tweets, deleted DMs, decided not to have anything else to do with it. But the situation at Lucasfilm is not getting better, and choosing to “grin and bear it” (as I’ve done these last months) is not bringing about a resolution. Starting in 2014, Lucasfilm seemed to decide that mocking and shaming fans into silence was the way to handle disruptions. And over the last year, again and again, the employees of Lucasfilm (and I include in that designation directors and actors who have participated in Lucasfilm projects while not necessarily literally working in that office) have doubled down on their antagonism. The vitriol gets stronger and stronger, pitting “pro-Lucasfilm” fans against “anti-Lucasfilm” fans when in reality, we should all want the healthy thriving of the fantastic saga that has changed all of our lives for the better. But Lucasfilm refuses to let anyone say “you’re not doing justice to George Lucas’ Star Wars.” The kneejerk response is “you’re a troll.” Or more recently, “you’re a Russian bot.” We are instantly degraded because we don’t toe the party line. When did Star Wars become so Soviet?

As I started in the previous post: It seems like more and more, Disney|Lucasfilm and Star Wars fans are unable to talk. If fans disagree with corporate policy on any level, or hold any opinion deemed negative by the Star Wars overlords, there is a total communication blackout between these two groups. And that blackout, I’m here to say, does not originate with the fans. It is a calculated thing coming from within the company, originated by those working for Lucasfilm.

I know this is not true Lucasfilm. Therefore, this cannot be the desire of the people who work so hard to create the stories that mean so much to so many. So where is it coming from? It must come from ignorance. The people in charge simply must not know that this is going on. So how do we fix it?

My experience with Ms. Gutierrez was a very brief nightmare. But other fans have lost more than I have. Fan podcasts have lost their Lucasfilm endorsement. I’ve simply had unpleasant interactions with Lucasfilm employees, like the time Pablo Hidalgo told me to shut up because my opinion didn’t matter (not in so many words, but when I asked if that’s what he meant, he didn’t deny it). But this is not the way to do business. Fans don’t want to go to a movie when they know the people behind the movie think they’re stupid. Every year, more fans sign on with the boycott, and insulting us just isn’t bringing us back into the fold somehow.

There is a light of hope, though. Recently, the hysterical Chuck Wendig went on a Twitter rant about how his Twitter rants have resulted in his being removed from all future Disney|Marvel/Lucasfilm productions. That is how to fix this growing chasm between fans and creators, between fans and fans. Get rid of the people who are fueling hostility, who think insults are a rebuttal, who viciously attack anyone for disagreeing with them.

Now, don’t misquote me; I’m not saying wipe the slate over at Lucasfilm, but Chuck Wendig knew better. He literally wrote a book full of advice for writers that contained the advice “don’t be a d*** on social media,” and if you can’t avoid that, “hire a ghost writer.” Get rid of the people who spout vitriol even though they know better.

In the end, Ms. Gutierrez did reach out to people on Reddit and ask them to let the whole situation go. I was not able to get in touch with her personally, but I think we both realized that through mutual poor communication, we allowed an overreaction to take place. That’s good. Now, in order to close that chasm, it needs to keep happening. Some people like Chuck Wendig need to go. Others, I hope, just need encouragement to speak appropriately, honor the legacy that was entrusted to them, and give fair hearing to the valid concerns of fans. In short, stop assuming that everyone who disagrees must be a troll.

It seems like more and more, Disney|Lucasfilm and Star Wars fans are unable to talk. If fans disagree with corporate policy on any level, or hold any opinion deemed negative by the Star Wars overlords, there is a total communication blackout between these two groups. And that blackout, I’m here to say, does not originate with the fans. It is a calculated thing coming from within the company, originated by those working for Lucasfilm.

I know this is not true Lucasfilm. Therefore, this cannot be the desire of the people who work so hard to create the stories that mean so much to so many. So where is it coming from? It must come from ignorance. The people in charge simply must not know that this is going on. So how do we fix it? A good start is by bringing things into the light — like my bleak encounter with a Lucasfilm employee nine months ago.

It was the end of February, the beginning of my Wednesday work day, when somebody I was in a conversation chain with on Twitter asked, “Have you seen this?”

“This” was a still from a Disney|Lucasfilm web show; I’d never heard of the show, I don’t remember the name of it now, and I don’t think it’s important to the story to look it up for you. At first I didn’t see why it possibly mattered. Some woman, evidently the host — some random YouTuber, I assumed — stood in an office-looking place with bits of ephemera all around. And then I noticed the picture under her left elbow: the famous shot of Luke and Vader in the Death Star turbolift, a scene with particular meaning for me as it kicks off my favorite 45 minutes of cinema in the universe.

But Luke’s face had a big red X over it.

“Well, that’s a little ungracious on a Star Wars show,” I thought. This was barely two months since December’s big catastrophe — namely, the decision of nucanon to discard Luke Skywalker like a wad of gum and not treat Mark Hamill, his actor, much better.

And then I found out something that made me sit up and pay attention: the show was an official LFL production. It was recorded in their office. This crossed-out picture of Luke was displayed in a fairly prominent location in the office of a corporation named after the man who created Luke Skywalker, Lucasfilm, the entire franchise, the very thing that gave these people a job in the first place.

Now I was upset.

I should point out here, if you’re unfamiliar with me or my work, if you started rolling your eyes that I never heard of this show or its host, here’s a couple things you need to understand. I don’t follow Disney’s “nucanon” Star Wars. I don’t accept into canon anything produced after the buyout in 2012. I unliked the official Star Wars Facebook pages in 2014. I unfollowed their Twitter account in 2015. I have never followed any employee of Lucasfilm on Twitter, ever. Mark Hamill is the only real life person involved with Star Wars I even follow on Twitter, which I’ve done since the day he got the account. I use Twitter’s “mute” filters to keep any Disney Star Wars out of my feed. I don’t have a YouTube account; I don’t watch internet videos. My engagement with “Star Wars current events” is very limited in nature and specific in scope. Basically the only thing I do is remind Lucasfilm that it was immoral of them to declare 38 years of canon “non-canon” and then cannibalize it for parts in their reboot. I think the reboot was foolish, but I’ve never asked them to cancel it. I’ve never gone after the employees. As someone who endured a stalker for years, I’m sensitive about how I interact with others, and I have always been explicit that my objections are objections against the entity of Disney|Lucasfilm, and they are not personal on any level against anyone.

So I wrote this tweet, after doing a little brief research to identify the person in the picture (since that’s just good journalism):

This needs to go viral.–

How much does Lucasfilm hate Star Wars? Hate what George Lucas built? Hate what fans value? If “TLJ” wasn’t enough to prove how much they hate Luke, check out the “X” on his face, prominently displayed next to host Andi Gutierrez on an official channel. pic.twitter.com/boEFZyGhim

I didn’t tag her, didn’t even think to check if she had a Twitter account, because she had nothing to do with the content of the tweet. I didn’t assume the artwork belonged to her, was her doing, or was even endorsed by her. So I accused her of nothing, because she had absolutely nothing to do with the point I wanted to make. She was merely in the picture. Despite using the word “viral,” I expected no reaction because, firstly, I had under 500 followers at that time; and secondly, because I’d made similar tweets in the weeks before with little attention.

It’s worth pointing out that by the time I made this tweet, almost noon for me and not yet 9 AM for her, Ms. Gutierrez had already announced on her Twitter (which I didn’t know existed) that she was “done” because she had already received “so many” emails about it. I shouldn’t have to add that I don’t know what her email is, and could not have been directing anyone to harass her inbox because the image had been circulating on Twitter and Facebook long before I even learned of it. (People did immediately run off with my MS Paint recreation of the crossed out Luke picture, though — that makes me laugh.)

Now, to be honest, I have no idea how Ms. Gutierrez found my thread. I did reply to her on another account, but I had no idea who she was (her @ handle was what had displayed, not the boldface nickname). If I had known I was addressing an LFL employee and not a fellow Twitter fan, yes, I would’ve worded it differently.

When she made the remark about it being her livelihood, I checked her feed and realized who she was. So I responded a little more deferentially but with evident frustration:

Any rudeness is merely assumed on your part. Here are fans telling you “we are hurt by what Lucasfilm is doing” & instead of saying, “We need to reevaluate what we’re doing,” you’re scolding & complaining. It’s not about a picture on someone’s desk. It’s about the whole attitude.

Because this has been the ongoing interaction with Disney|Lucasfilm. Fans say “this makes us uncomfortable,” “we’re upset about this,” and the DisLFL employees respond with taunts, bullying, or the brush-off.

I was completely shocked by her reply, telling me that she “couldn’t tell” if I was trolling or not, but ‘bye!

So I posted this as a follow-up to my earlier tweet:

And this is WHY it needs to go viral.

Lucasfilm does not represent George Lucas’ Star Wars any longer.

Every time fans come forward with legitimate concerns, we are dismissed, told we’re trolling. No matter how we plead, we are told to get with the program or shut up. pic.twitter.com/VEKWZHnPWN

This lit an absolute fire. Notice two things: first, that I didn’t reply to her because she said the conversation was over. Second, that I chose to screenshot rather than RT, and that I didn’t tag her in it, because I didn’t wish to drag her into something she said was over from her point of view.

But that didn’t stop her from finding it (was she stalking my feed?!) and retweeting it to her ~500,000 followers (again, I was sitting on about 480 followers at the time), commenting something about how she might have cancer and really couldn’t deal with people like me right now. I must’ve gotten about 200 @’s, most of which I never read because they got vile fast. I also got maybe a dozen direct messages that included threats, profanity, insults. I had to aggressively filter my Twitter notifications for the next week, just to keep this garbage out of my sight.

I was alarmed that she might be getting entangled in something like this while dealing with a serious health concern, and yet simultaneously disgusted that she chose to target me of all people. Not the @JarJarAbramss account she had been replying to initially. Not any of the other many accounts that shared the image or even the Facebook page that posted it first. Hours after she declared she was going to ignore it because she was fed up with all the emails, she was engaging with tweets on it, and then, it seems almost arbitrarily, chose to broadcast my handle to her followers as a target.

I decided to shut it down and walk away while I still could. I’m an anxious, introverted person who can’t handle confrontation well ever since I picked up a stalker in my senior year of college. If someone with half a million Twitter followers was going to send them after me, I thought, it’s very possible they can get my Twitter deleted. I decided it wasn’t worth the risk — I love my Twitter, love the interaction I have there, and didn’t want to jeopardize it over this, or wreck my health by putting myself in a situation to field dozens of vile threats in my DMs. So I closed the lid.

A long time ago, I thought I’d have to do a post about Jar Jar for the “character everyone else hates that you love” challenge. I ended up finding another character, which was good because I don’t love Jar Jar and I like to be accurate.

But for the last month or so, I’ve been thinking more and more about Jar Jar as a character and about the structure of the prequel trilogy in general. First: I like everything about Episode I except the podrace. I like Jar Jar’s character, his role, and everything else. I don’t like that he’s in 2 and 3, but in every scene, he annoys me far less than Artoo does. I will vote Jar Jar over Artoo every day of the week.

People often accuse Jar Jar of serving no purpose. Actually, he is a tremendous character, and there’s a lot going on here that has to do with the old-fashioned style of storytelling Lucas prefers combined with Ahmed Best’s own acting style.

First, complaints about Jar Jar are generally unhinged. I did the math, and he carries 9% of E1’s dialogue; he’s onscreen about 30% of the time, but that’s every moment he’s visible, not every moment he’s the focus (I didn’t calculate that). People act like every single moment is him dancing around juggling senatorial bills or something.

Second, there’s great artistry going on in his performance. People who don’t get that Lucas is following a 1930s style aren’t going to catch how Jar Jar’s a Buster Keaton homage. But Ahmed Best worked hard AND worked well. Liam Neeson himself said “this guy’s gonna be the next Eddie Murphy.” He called him hilarious. No one in the cast or crew thought there was any problem with the character.

I had this idea a couple weeks ago that Jar Jar is supposed to be the “gateway” for the younger audience, to draw them into the action. I was thinking about the poignancy of his “I was banished for being clumsy” past. You know how the droids were the gateway for the OT–the films Lucas made for 12-year-olds (his phrase)–but he made E1 for his own kids, a younger audience. Little kids are always getting shut out for clumsiness, for being silly, for not being like the adults. And here’s Jar Jar, a big character who is just like them. He’s a simple guy. He just wants to have breakfast. But he gets whisked off with these people doing things too big for him to understand. He’s exiled for clumsiness yet he saves them all.

There’s the beauty in the story of Jar Jar: Even the most annoying or incompetent individual has value. This is a message our modern world desperately needs to hear, as genocide against Down syndrome becomes increasingly the cultural norm, as teenage suicide skyrockets, as kids start to question their meaning in life at younger and younger ages.

If you hate Jar Jar, if you weren’t a young child when you first saw E1, I encourage you to just take a minute and put aside all your first impressions of the character. Sit down and watch the movie, if not with the innocence of a child, at least without the cynical assumptions of an old crank. Keep your eyes on Jar Jar as much as you can, every moment he’s on screen. I did this for the first time last week and was amazed. In the OT, Luke is the only one worth watching every second because he’s the only one who is always reacting, always doing something. Fisher and Ford both kind of check out when the scene isn’t on them. But Ahmed Best and Mark Hamill are always doing something worth seeing. I watched how he stands in the background, rocking on his feet, swaying his arms, blinking, looking at people . . . and I went, “Sweet Maker, I’ve been Jar Jar my whole life. Staring at people I don’t get doing things I don’t understand, wondering what I can possibly do to fit in or help.”

Again, I’m not some huge Jar Jar fanboy and I don’t think he should’ve been in Episodes II and III, but I have always loved this: after the whole movie of Jar Jar breaking things when he wants to help (title of my autobiography right there), he has the courage to speak to the QUEEN. Think about that. He doesn’t know that’s Padmé! It’s a stranger, the leader of the people who universally hate his people. It must’ve been the scariest moment of his life. And then his sincere attempt to make her feel better, because he has no racism and can’t stand seeing anyone sad, actually inspires her with a game plan to both rid her planet of invaders and unite it more powerfully than ever before. And get this . . . It works! He did it right! The whole final focus of the movie doesn’t so much celebrate banishing the invaders as it celebrates a world of united peoples. Because Jar Jar worked up the courage to do something. Awesome.

Now think about being a little kid seeing this for the first time, a little kid who gets pushed around at school, pushed aside at home, who’s always being told he’s too clumsy, the wrong shape, or not smart enough to do things. “Nobody talks like that,” “Nobody looks like that,” stuff every victim of bullying hears. And then this kid sees Jar Jar, nonthreatening, funny Jar Jar. This character who goes through all the same stuff this little kid does–but Jar Jar never loses his good attitude, he never gives up, and then he saves everybody.

Adults get too cynical about the PT. But I guarantee you Jar Jar changed some little kid’s life when they realized that no matter what people yelled at them, they could save the world. We’re still watching the people grow up who grew up with the PT, they’re only just now beginning to find their voice and move into the public square where the folks who grew up on the OT have dominated. I think once these full-saga kids are adults who start speaking for themselves, we’re going to hear a lot about this whole different perspective on the much-maligned Jar Jar.

Star Wars has always been one unified galaxy to me, one single saga told over a variety of mediums, all equal parts of the same body, all the undeniable history of a single place. The main reason for this is that I originally encountered all three branches of the saga–the Original Trilogy, the Expanded Universe, the Prequel Trilogy–within one year of each other–and that year, by and large, was 1997. So as I’m guessing you’ve heard me say once or twice over the last few months, this year is absolutely full of significant anniversaries for me.

Storytime!

November 12, 1997. I was twelve and, after seeing Star Wars for the first time ten months ago, I’d begun to consider “Star Wars fan” a foundation of my identity. Also foundational to my identity, “horsewoman.” I’d been taking riding lessons at a local horse farm over the summer and my mind was full of daydreams where I get my own horse, achieve horsemanship certification level 4, and eventually teach students how to ride like my idol, the woman who taught our class.

Anyway, in November, the horse camp offered an opportunity to local homeschooling families, an opportunity to come out during a week and spend a couple days during the off-season learning horse-care chores and, I guess, helping them get the place closed up for winter.

This time of year, Ohio becomes a blanket of gray. The sky is like a field of slate. Bare trees with gray trunks stab black branches into the heavy clouds. Even the earth in the empty farmland has a grayish cast. Snow isn’t uncommon, and I used to make jokes about “White Thanksgiving” when I was about this age. That week, temperatures were between 20-30 °F (average of -2 °C). It was dark long before dinner, and for some reason, I had gone upstairs to the bunk room before it was time to eat. I don’t know if I was just looking to get away from people or after something I’d left in my bag, but I found someone else sitting in the room.

“The House” at Marmon was an old, creaky building, and the girls’ bunk room was at the top of the stairs and to the right. There were bunk beds along both walls and a window at the far end. Sitting under this window was a girl named Megan who looked just like me only she didn’t have bangs. She was sitting on the edge of the lower bunk, hunched over, reading something. I caught sight of the raised foil lettering and before I could think, I exclaimed, rather than asked, “Is that a Star Wars book!”

It was Assault at Selonia. She let me hold it for a minute, but I could tell she was more focused on reading than anything else, so I handed it back and left. We sat together at dinner, though, and were inseparable for the rest of the trip. That night, I switched bunks with someone else so both Megan and I had top bunks with our heads together and I read my first EU book–her book, her flashlight, which we shared by reading one chapter before passing it back to the other.

I couldn’t have slept that night for anything. My brain was more fireworks than it had been after finishing Return of the Jedi back in February. I had known for some time there were books; I have no idea when or how I found this out, but I knew they were out there and I took it absolutely for granted they were equal status with the films. A novel set 14 years after Return of the Jedi may seem like an awkward starting place, but after all, A New Hope starts with a 20-year-old empire and plenty of unspoken backstory. I was ecstatic that Han and Leia had three kids. And one was (almost certainly) a hot, intelligent, awesome boy my own age! And hysterical that Han was being held prisoner and tortured by an evil cousin. Selonians were instantly fascinating. The galaxy had suddenly grown that much vaster and my brain could barely keep up with all the expanding territory.

Eventually, one of the chaperones scolded the Other Megan and I into keeping the light off, but I still doubt any sleeping actually took place. We were glued together through the next day, taking work assignments together and polishing dozens of saddles in a semi-heated room that would eventually become the camp gift store. We talked nonstop, mostly about Star Wars, but a few personal details crept in. We also played a game dubbed “Star Wars railroad,” which consisted of giving a Star Wars word that started with the same letter that the previous word ended with. i.e., Star Wars – Selonia – Anakin – Nien Nunb – Bakura. I described the day in my diary when I got home:

Elisa went home and I went to camp today. There were 3 Megans in our room. One Megan looks like me, dark hair and Eyes, and she’s my age, loves Star wars, has a dog named Abby, and rode Toby! She’s letting me borrow ‘Assault at Selona’. We soaped saddles then we oiled them. Toby wasn’t there. Rode Vandi.

Megan ultimately ended up being the source of my first dozen EU books, as we were both in a play that December (pictured), and then we went on to be in the same electricity class in the new year. We were both in chess and horseback riding, though not the same sessions, so we began trading letters. For a few years, we wrote letters regularly and called on weekends when cell phone minutes were free. The last time I really remember talking to her was the end of May 1999, when she was exuberant over having seen Episode I and I was wallowing in disappointment that I wouldn’t get to see it for a few more weeks.

Still, I have a box of letters in the closet, all signed “Megan ‘Han Solo'” and with the opening greeting, “Red Leader to Gold Leader.” (All mine to her began “Echo Five to Echo Seven.”) She made trivia cards and sent them to her; I made bookmarks. She also sent me clippings, stickers, and a Luke Skywalker poster I kept in my closet for years so no one would know I had it.

Ooh! Fun story about that Luke Skywalker poster. I had two closets in my room and one I considered “my office.” I used to shut myself up in it especially if my nieces were over and I wanted privacy. I actually slept in there one night my oldest niece was being a particular pain in my neck; I “locked” the door by tying a bathrobe sash to the knob and tying the other end to the shelf so she couldn’t get in. I had the mini-poster of Luke on the wall, not to mention a bunch of cozy blankets, and a plastic cart with three baskets in it where I could keep things. I can’t find a good picture of that bedroom, but it wasn’t big, not like a walk-in closet or anything. Just a regular clothes closet. I can’t believe there’s no pictures. Anyway…

The point of all that is, 20 years ago this very week, I read these words for the very first time:

And I knew, knew that being a Star Wars fan was inseparable from being a fan of the EU. The EU is Star Wars. Star Wars is the EU. To pretend otherwise would be like cutting one of the six movies from existence–like pretending to make movies without George Lucas–both incomplete and also a little obscene.

In a day and age that makes it easy to take cheap shots at George Lucas, even while glorying in his imaginative creation, Ahmed Best tells it like it is in a refreshing change of pace.

Quotes to note:

“George Lucas really does things that he believes. He has an incredible conviction behind every decision that he makes. That’s not the way Disney does movies. Disney does movies in a way that has to please stockholders, and that has to please a wide swath of people, a huge general audience”;

and,

“I appreciate filmmakers who have that type of vision, I appreciate filmmakers who really go out on a limb and take a risk. With these new movies, these filmmakers are different. They’re not George Lucas.”

If your post about Star Wars diary entries inspires someone else to post about diary entries, and their post is about dreams and you’re inspired to do a post about Star Wars dream diary entries, is that inception? My head’s already buzzing and I haven’t even started!

Pretty much my whole life, I’ve always had extremely vivid dreams. I used to be able to remember them very clearly, but these days, not so much–and that’s not a discipline thing, because I used to automatically remember them and think about them all day, and over the last four years, even as I try to remember, I totally forget by the time I’m on my feet. Star Wars dreams, though, were this unattainable holy grail. I’ve barely ever dreamed about Star Wars, and it feeds one of my theories that if something is part of your conscious thinking, your unconscious won’t produce dreams about it. At least mine doesn’t. I fell asleep during The Omen and had a totally banal dream. And while I have had intense nightmares, including years of sleep paralysis, waking dreams, and exploding head syndrome, they’ve never been connected with anything going on with me.

This is why I can pretty much give you all the Star Wars dreams I’ve ever had, and hope you’ll find them as entertaining as I do, haha.

Tuesday, October 6, 1998

Dear Diary, I had a great SW dream last night. In the beginning; Luke Skywalker, Leia? and myself were solving puzzles so we could escape this locked door-room. 3 of the pictures were STAR WARS, (the puzzles were pictures with multiple choice guesses) I solved those. After we solved them, an ostrich like bird that kept appearing and dissapearing in different places came and said something like: “We thought you would solve them… that is why the… made it SEEM like you (?)…” I don’t remember the rest.

Then Darth Vader is there. He is laying down, Leia & Luke lean over him. Leia leaves. I am now only an observer. Luke and Vader both have lightsabers lit, Vader says “Luke, they told me I was going to kill you” or something. Luke and Vader lean close, or at least Luke does. They turn off their sabers. Darkness.

Now to Han Solo. He is wearing Scout Trooper armour. The helmet breaks. He rips it off, and says to Chewie. “It’s OK with me if you want to go fight those bird-things with the legs, but what the [hell] are you going to do now?” I woke up.

Notice with that one that even though Han very clearly said hell in my dream, scandalizing my innocent little brain incredibly, I wrote heck in my diary. Not because I thought anyone would ever see my diary or care, but because writing the word hell was just wrong. (Yeah, I didn’t start getting sweary for many years after that.) What’s really amazing about this one is I can still really vividly picture the green grass and Han in his Stormtrooper uniform on this alien planet.

(Between October. 6 and December. 3)

(2nd dream, after alarm). Another STAR WARS dream. Kari & I (and Dad, later) were at this one place. We got to rolls of prisoner-herd tape inside (it started as an advertisement for a STAR WARS Nintendo game). I said “we’ve got to get to Leia!” She (KJ) & Dad & I were trying to hide from Stormtroopers. I got lost (and separated) from them. There was a big room with a swimming pool lagoon. The water was green, it was shifty. There were also lots of plants. I heard Stormtroopers going by. I ran out and walked up to a man in charge. “Hi!” I said.

“Hello! Do you want to go out for coffee?”

“Have you found them yet?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said.

“Where would I be most likely to find them?”

“Down that way,” he pointed.

“Thank you. Thank you very much.”

I went down that way. Kari was talking to someone, then she turned around and said, “Oh, there you are! I was soo worried!” I told Dad I wanted a CD. We did a few more things, I almost got lost again and we were outside going somewhere. I woke up. Somewhere in here, Kari & I got some small, alien prisoners that disappeared by the end.

I have to admit, this one doesn’t read very well, but I loved it at the time because I felt kind of powerful flirting with the guy for information and/or to trick him. Again, it doesn’t read like that’s what happened, but that’s how it felt.

(Dream 1, before alarm) We were in a place. We saw a church play, and ate some kind of beef & vegetables, someone got burned. Obi-Wan was there every once in a while.

All I can say here is that for some reason, I didn’t write down that I was the one that got burned, and it was because my leg had fallen asleep and it woke me up with pins and needles. I have no idea why I didn’t record it that way.

As I mentioned earlier, I basically never dreamed about Star Wars, so here are a couple more one-offs I don’t really have anything to say about, but they’re entertaining:

Sunday, August 8, 1999 Dear Diary, I’m going to tell you about 3 dreams I’ve had lately about Star Wars: There was a poster girl thing-whoozit that was alive. I was trying to protect my Star Wars notebook that had a picture of Qui-Gon in it. I don’t really remember much more except that I was pretending to be dead & turned into a flat poster whoozit or something. I just remembered that I don’t remember the second. The one I just had just had me holding my notebook & I did something about Qui-Gon snoring.

Monday, August 9, 1999 Dear Diary, SW Dream. M & some people from E1 (Qui-Gon too) were in a Gungan sub going through the planet core. Then we saw Jar Jar Binks out there swimming and being chased by Opee sea killer, Qui-Gon goes out to rescue Jar Jar (of course!) and then they return to the bongo and we get out of there and have a picnic, where I’m Jar Jar and I started talking really high pitched. I said something like “Thank you for save my.”

Thursday, August 26, 1999 Dear Diary, Had another SW dream. Obi-Wan was there. He was in a little space-pod that was rattling around in some big ship. It was graspbed by some Sith dude whose name started w/G. He demanded to speak w/ “his master”, but Sith refused. Then “I” (I don’t know who “I” was) was with these other guys, Bossk was one of ’em, Boba Fett & some gal in Mandalorian Armor.

I also remember once having an insanely detailed dream of being partnered with Obi-Wan while we ran through these tunnels trying to find Xanatos, but I can’t find it in a diary anywhere. Weird!

Consider this. The YT-1300 is not a spectacular ship. It’s a freight hauler, an intergalactic semi truck — and an outdated one at that. But what about Han Solo’s YT-1300, the Millennium Falcon, makes our hearts sing and pulses race with excitement?

Surely it’s what he tells Luke in the first minutes of A New Hope: “She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts. I’ve made a lot of special modifications myself.”

We love modifications. We love customization. The ubiquitous smartphone is personalized with skins outside and background images inside. And even the default choices for desktop backgrounds aren’t good enough; there are whole websites dedicated to gathering or even digitally creating backgrounds so we can express our individuality. We even alter functionality, using apps and add-ons based on our personal needs. Some tech geniuses even know how to make mechanical adjustments to their devices. And it’s not just our technology.

We customize our living spaces, applying paint and floor coverings to reflect our personalities. Pinterest is full of ideas on how to modify furniture, to turn old dressers into shelves, tables, chairs?! Do a search for “Ikea Hack” and find out how to add a personal touch to impersonal furniture. There’s no denying that human beings love to adjust things to fit.

Until, of course, you start talking about doing it to books.

Meet my Star Wars library. Like the Millennium Falcon, its appearance can be deceptive. You might think it doesn’t look like much, since I restrict my timeline to books set before the Hand of Thrawn Duology and refuse to buy or even read anything published after Disney’s purchase in 2012. But this library, like the Falcon, has it where it counts. I’ve made a lot of special modifications myself.

Before we explore those, though, I want to say a word about book modification. We take for granted the customization of our technological devices. Even body modification doesn’t earn a double take anymore. But if you announce that you write in your books, you’re stripped of your “book lover” status and thrown into the dark with those disturbed souls who use Readers Digest Condensed Books for craft projects or dog-ear pages instead of using a bookmark.

I took a quiz once about “What kind of reader are you?” and it said people who love their books read them while wearing gloves, never lend them out, never eat while reading–never do anything that would make them change from how they looked sitting on the shelf in the bookstore. Well, that’s a load of bantha poodoo. I love my books. I also write in my books. I eat while reading. And, by the way, gloves are tremendously bad for books! (Seriously. They’re dirtier than your hands and you’re far more likely to tear a page while wearing stupid gloves.) My books are my friends. Why should I ostracize them from my daily life just so they’ll “always look new”? A new-looking book is an unloved book, and that’s a fact.

Specifically about marginalia. I spent ten years as a Shakespearean researcher. Do you know that the untouched, pristine copies were the most useless? Sad books with uncut pages that nobody had ever read? I spent my research days poring over the editions full of marginalia, fingers pointing, angry ink dots, corrections, emendations, insults, exultations. Marginalia is how we anchor ourselves in eternity, hooking our thoughts onto a page that will last far longer than we will. I remember telling one of my nieces, “Always write your name in your books. That makes it special. That makes it yours.”

And I’m in favor of writing far more than that. If it’s your book, I think you have a right to leave your thoughts on the page. So much the better if you can trade the book with a friend who’ll add theirs before giving it back!

Let’s get specific now. My Star Wars library has every type of modification. And I bet that you won’t even be able to tell a difference as we explore those modifications.

First, the obvious. I have made it my clear stance that I refuse to accept anything set after the Hand of Thrawn or anything published after Disney (except for Scoundrels, because Timothy Zahn earned that right). For me, all that stuff is heresy. It’s not the true Star Wars and I don’t want it in my house. Publishers, however, like to promote their wares wherever they can. Job one for my library was removing all those references: specifically, editing timelines that suggested post-VotF history and removing previews of books I consider offensive.

Next was the more complex job of editing the nonfiction works that posit post-VotF as history. The biggest example of this is The Essential Atlas, which I consider an essential resource, but its “Fate of the Jedi” content has always hindered me. This is the book that actually started me on this path. As you can see, though, the edits are almost entirely unobtrusive.

This kind of work is not difficult even if it is relatively tedious. When you understand how a book is put together, which I learned in Descriptive Bibliography (SLIS-S 684), it’s uncomplicated to excise without damaging or even leaving noticeable scarring. A good x-acto knife and rubber cement are essential. I use plain white glue to reinforce the binding where it’s been exposed. Be honest; you can’t even tell, can you?

In this way, I keep my collection healthy and whole. No compromise, one of my major tenets of love for Star Wars. But what of the marginalia? You know, even the Star Wars books themselves promote marginalia, with the Handbooks series boasting handwritten notes by main characters.

My notes are chiefly cross-references–an occasion is mentioned in one book and I add a note for the page number and title of the book where the incident occurred. But the most entertaining notes, which I provide for your entertainment, are where I take the Original Trilogy novelizations to task for all their wrongheadedness. James Kahn, especially, writes an absurd adaptation full of unjustifiable nonsense. Thankfully it’s S-canon, but I still have a lot of fun writing saucy notes–and even more fun reading them later.

So there you have it! I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my modified library — and that you’ll be more accepting of modified libraries in the future. After all, if people can get a tattoo because it’s special to them, why can’t I reorganize a few pages in a fictional encyclopedia?